David J. Wasserstein. "The Caliphal Institution in al-Andalus
until 422/1031," from his The Caliphate in the West, Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1993, chpt. 1.

Independent Umayyad rule in Spain began with the arrival in the Iberian
peninsula of 'Abd al-Rahman I, al-Dakhil, in I38/755-6 and his successful
assumption of authority there, with the defeat of both the incumbent governor
and subsequent 'Abbasid attempts to reassert central control from Baghdad.
Umayyad victory in Spain immediately raised the question of the caliphate:
could this Umayyad prince, one of the few survivors of the 'Abbasid slaughter
of his house, proffer recognition to the 'Abbasids as caliphs? If he did,
then this would destroy his own legitimacy. If he did not, his action would
stand as a challenge to the usurpers and possibly also affect the nature
of the universal caliphate.

This first Umayyad in fact adopted both policies. At first, and probably
more by unthinking accident than by deliberate policy, he named the 'Abbasid
caliph in the weekly khutba, the Friday sermon in the mosque, of which
a prayer containing the name of the reigning caliph formed part. After
a few months, a relative, himself a newly arrived refugee from the east,
pointed out the incongruity and the absurdity of this action, and urged
him to stop it. 'Abd al-Rahman did so, and thereafter, for well over a
century, no caliph was named in the khutba at all. The caliphate, so far
at least as concerned al-Andalus, appears to have been regarded as having
a sedes vacans. The Umayyad rulers of Islamic Spain saw themselves as unjustly
excluded from their caliphal inheritance in the east, both as caliphs and
as rulers; they called themselves 'sons of the caliphs', with an evident
propagandistic, as well as merely nostalgic, purpose; throughout this period
they refrained from minting gold coins, an action associated with sovereignty
and hence reserved to a caliph or those acting in his name; and they made
no attempt to establish a rival caliphal institution, Avignon-style, in
Cordoba, to challenge the 'Abbasids.

This last feature of Umayyad reaction to the 'Abbasids is worthy of
note, for it in fact implied acceptance that there existed, indeed could
exist, but a single caliphal institution; since the 'Abbasids occupied
that institution, though as usurpers, the Umayyads themselves could not
do so; but they could refuse explicit recognition.

The successors of 'Abd al-Rahman I continued his policy, ignoring the
'Abbasids so far as possible, being largely ignored by them in their far-off
corner of the Islamic world, and allowing the question of the role of the
caliphal institution for al-Andalus to remain unanswered and unclear, until
the reign of 'Abd al-Rahman III (300/9I2-350/96I). For much of this time,
indeed, the very status of the Umayyads as rulers of al-Andalus, if by
and large unchallenged by the 'Abbasids, had been severely dented by challenges
within: a whole series of rivals and rebels against Cordoban Umayyad authority
had kept the state, and the dynasty, in a condition of great weakness.
There were times when the power and authority of the Umayyads scarcely
extended outside the capital. At certain periods the failure to mint coinage
in gold seems to have been a result as much of poverty as of policy.

During the half-century reign of 'Abd al-Rahman III, however, all this
changed. This ruler spent the first third of his long reign in asserting
the authority of Cordoba, gradually wearing down and defeating one by one
all the local magnates and marcher lords who had alternately defied and
ignored his predecessors. He crowned a decade and a half of energetic campaigning
with the final defeat of the longest-lasting and most serious rebellion
of all, that of the Hafsunids, in 3I5/928. In the following year, secure
at home and feeling the beginnings of a new role for Islamic Spain outside
the peninsula, he proceeded to an act of an altogether different order:
he assumed caliphal titles, or, more precisely, he reassumed the caliphal
dignity and titles of his oriental ancestors.

The motives which led 'Abd al-Rahman to do this appear to have been
mixed. The decline of the real power and influence of the 'Abbasids, in
Baghdad, was probably the most encouraging feature of the contemporary
political landscape, as it suggested that from that quarter at least would
come no serious reaction to this move. The rise of the Fatimids, by contrast,
at this time still based in Qayrawan, in north Africa, showed that, while
there might exist only a single caliphal institution, there might coexist
simultaneously more than a single dynasty with some fairly acceptable claims
to fill it. But while the Fatimids' caliphal claims might encourage others
also to similar claims, their military and political strength, expressed
through the dispatch very widely all over the Islamic world of religious-cum-political
da's, or missionaries, compelled the Umayyads to think in terms of an ideologically
based reaction, as well as one built on purely political or military foundations.

The assumption of caliphal titles was an obvious choice of strategy.
As a policy, it had other advantages too, for it marked in a sense the
coming of age of al-Andalus under the Umayyads as a Mediterranean state,
one with claims to equal status with other states around that sea, and
most particularly with the states of the Fatimids and the great traditional
rival and enemy of Islam, the Byzantine emperor. Acceptance of Umayyad
claims in this area by Constantinople would mark Umayyad membership in
the society of sovereigns on the international plane, throwing down a gauntlet
to the 'Abbasids and recalling long-past Umayyad-Byzantine conflicts from
the days of the Damascene Umayyads.

'Abd al-Rahman's assumption of the caliphal titles took the form of
a letter to his governors in different places announcing, not that he had
adopted such titles, but rather that thenceforward he should be addressed
by such titles and mentioned under caliphal title in the khutba, the weekly
sermon in the mosques.

The text of the letter (after the introductory formulas) was as follows:

"We are the most worthy to fulfil our right, and the most entitled
to complete our good fortune, and to put on the clothing granted by the
nobility of God, because of the favour which He has shown us, and the renown
which He has given us, and the power to which He has raised us, because
of what He has enabled us to acquire, and because of what He has made easy
for us and for our state [? dynasty; Arabic. dawla] to achieve; He has
made our name and the greatness of our power celebrated everywhere; and
He has made the hopes of the worlds depend on us, and made their errings
turn again to us and their rejoicing at good news be (rejoicing at good
news) about our dynasty. And praise be to God, possessed of grace and kindness,
for the grace which He has shown, [God] most worthy of superiority for
the superiority which He has granted us. We have decided that the da'wa
should be to us as Commander of the Faithful and that letters emanating
from us or coming to us should be [headed] in the same manner. Everyone
who calls himself by this name apart from ourselves is arrogating it to
himself [unlawfully] and trespassing upon it and is branded with something
to which he has no right. We know that if we were to continue [allowing]
the neglect of this duty which is owed to us in this matter then we should
be forfeiting our right and neglecting our title, which is certain. So
order the khatib in your place to pronounce [the khutba] using [this title]
and address your communications to us accordingly, if God will. Written
on Thursday, 2 Dhu al-Hljja 3I6 [I6JanUary 929]."

The formulation of this letter both follows and diverges somewhat from
that of other such communications. It was normal for letters containing
material for onward transmission to his subjects to be sent by 'Abd al-Rahman
to his governors, and for him to instruct the addressees to read them out
to his subjects in the mosques. Such a letter is that announcing his destruction
of the Hafsunid stronghold of Bobastro, recorded by Ibn Hayyan. At the
end, this document says: 'and order this letter of ours to be read out
in the main mosque (al-masjid al-jami') in your place to our followers
and subjects in your presence, that they may rejoice at it and give praise
to God, may He be exalted.' The similarity with our document is clear.
But there is a difference: in the caliphal document, it is not the text
of the document itself which is to be published thus, but the effect of
the instruction contained in it. The khatib was not to read out the new
caliph's letter, but to mention him, as caliph, during the sermon. The
difference may not be insubstantial.

Almost at once, in 3I7/929, 'Abd al-Rahman began issuing gold coin,
and on it he placed the appropriate caliphal legends: al-imam al-Nasir
li-Dm Allah 'Abd al-Rahman amtr al-mu'mintn. He had in fact placed these
words on silver coin as early as 3I6/928, but we cannot know whether these
inscriptions antedated his assumption of the titles formally at the end
of the year.

It is difficult to know what meaning is to be attached to this new set
of titles thus taken on by the Spanish Umayyad. On the one hand, it seems
from the phraseology employed in his letter announcing the change that
he was aiming at an Umayyad restoration, if not immediate then at least
at some time in the future, in the whole Islamic world, and the overthrow
of the 'Abbasids. A century and three-quarters earlier, when the first
'Abd al-Rahman had called himself simply amr, without laying claim to caliphal
titulature, it had been abundantly clear that to claim anything more would
have been absurd. Now the Spanish Umayyads had to be taken more seriously,
and their titles, along with their implications, with them.

On the other hand, even given the radically altered balance of power
as between the Umayyads and the 'Abbasids, no one can seriously have thought
that an Umayyad restoration in the east was anything more than a mirage:
too much else had changed in that area since the 'Abbasid removal of the
Umayyads for the Cordoban rulers to be able to return. In this sense, while
their new titulature certainly had a programmatic significance for the
Islamic world as a whole, expressing very clearly something of the ambition
of the Cordoban caliph, the programme envisaged by it was largely theoretical;
to the extent that it was more than that, it was aimed at a more local
audience, in Spain itself and, beyond that, in the western Mediterranean
basin.

We have a good example of the issues that this raised in the record
of a series of contacts between 'Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir and the Fatinud
al-Mu'izz (34I/952-365/974). The contacts can be dated to the last four
years of 'Abd al-Rah. man's reign, the period between 346/957 and his death
in 350/96I. Recorded by the qadi Nu'man, a strong partisan of the Fatimids,
our account naturally tends to glorify al-Mu'izz and to make little of
the claims of the Umayyad. None the less, through the reports that we have
in this account of what were in effect indirect negotiations between the
two courts, we can discern something of the different claims and counter-claims
on the caliphal level made by these two dynasties.

These negotiations had to be indirect, at least on the formal level,
as each caliph rejected the legitimacy of the other; neither could even
address a letter to the other that he might have accepted; the letters
that are sent are quite regularly represented as being written by and to
intermediaries, always unnamed, who were dignitaries at the two courts
(in fact, on the Fatimid side, no letters are reported as having been written
at all; what we have is rather a record of al-Mu'izz's contemptuous muna-zara,
or dialectical rebuttal, of al- Nasir's proposals).

Al-Mu'izz adds but little to the debater's quiver. He complains that
the Umayyads had renewed the ancient practice of cursing the 'Alids (sc.
the Fatimids) from their pulpits. And he throws back at the Umayyads a
charge made against his own dynasty, that of illegitimate descent, in order
the better to bring out the illegitimacy of their claims to the caliphal
title: 'and to whom do they [sc. the Umayyads] trace their ancestry? To
dogs, or to apes, or to pigs? By God, these are better than the people
to whom they trace their ancestry. . . so leave them and their claims [to
high descent]; it sufffices them as a shame and a disgrace that they trace
their descent to him [sc. 'Abd al-Rahman I al-Dakhil].' And he asks how
it arises that 'Abd al-Rahman III suddenly chooses to call himself 'Commander
of the Faithfull':

"if this [title] was not known to him other than [as applied] to
the prophets, as he says, then what is the reason for his calling himself
Commander of the Faithful? This was unknown among those who [governed]
in al-Andalus [before him], and his ancestors who preceded him did not
call themselves by [this title], and nor did he during a long part of his
life. So what is it that has compelled him to act thus [now]? Was he in
the past, and [were] his ancestors before him, in ignorance of this, and
was he guided [only] afterwards to the correct [path]? [Nay] let him bear
witness against himself and them about that! But if they were right, then
the ignoramus, in differing from them and in calling himself [by this title],
has taken something to which he is no more entitled than they were.

If al-Mu'izz's arguments are not of the most sophisticated, they are
none the less revelatory of the twin positions of these two daimants to
caliphal dignity, and especially of the Umayyad's. It is clear that the
Fatimid, in impugning the legitimacy of the Umayyad, both as a member of
that family and as a caliph, had in mind his own Sunni subjects and other
Sunnis farther west, among whom the Umayyad might win, or had already won,
support against him. He was faced with a real competitor: if the Fatimids
could add a second caliphate to that of the 'Abbasids (even if a slightly
different one), then the Umayyads could do so just as well, with just as
plausible a title, and even perhaps face them down. In order to deny the
legitimacy of 'Abd al-Rahman as a caliph, he rejects, in accordance with
standard Shi'i doctrine, the legitimacy of the oriental Umayyads as caliphs,
not just because they had excluded 'Ali and his descendants from the succession
to the Prophet but also on account of their differences with the Prophet
himself. And in case that is not seen as a sufficient argument, he proceeds
to claim that the Marwanid branch of the Umayyad family was itself a bunch
of usurpers, having removed the Sufyanids from the succession; and on top
of this, he tosses in the old stand-by of doubt about the authenticity
of the Spanish Umayyads' identity as Umayyads at all: who really knew whether
'Abd al-Rahman I al-Dakhil had not been simply an audacious impostor, claiming
Umayyad blood in order to further his own private ambitions in Spain?

Although this has all the character of what may well have been a literary
topos, it seems also to contain elements of historical reality; that historical
reality, the political and military relationship between the Fatimids and
the Spanish Umayyads, was in fact littlee affected by the rival caliphal
claims of these rulers. A decade after this exchange the Fatimids moved
eastwards from Qayrawan, to Egypt, and their interest, and significance,
in north Africa diminished. While Umayyad interest in north Africa continued,
and indeed increased, thereafter, it never became so great as to bring
these two dynasties into direct contact again.

Under 'Abd al-Rahman's son and successor, al-Hakam II al- Mustansir
(350/96I-366/976), little changed. Like the Malikism of Umayyad Spain,
the caliphal title of its rulers became a part of the established orthodoxy,
and effectively unquestionable on that account. Its nature or meaning,
what purposes (beyond the purely ceremonial) it served, what needs it answered,
were questions which were little discussed. To the extent that they were
discussed, the regime seems to have felt an interest in suppressing divergence
from its own views. We have good evidence of this in the case of a man
put on trial for heresy during al-Hakam's reign.

Analysis of the charges against this man, Abu al-Khayr, and of the evidence
offered at his trial, is complicated by the fact that some parts of it
are in flat contradiction to others. Thus, for example, he is accused of
denying the reality of the Last Judgement and of punishment in the hereafter,
at the same time as he is accused of maintaining the Mu'tazil positions
that Muhammad does not intercede for sinners and that these latter remain
for ever in hell. And he is accused of having permitted both the eating
of pork and the drinking of wine, as well as of disregarding the times
and obligations of prayer. Others of the charges against him, however,
suggest generally Shi'i sympathies, while others again quite explicitly
attack the legitimacy of the caliphal institution occupied by al-Hakam
and assert the right of the Fatimids as against the Umayyads. Different
interpretations of the evidence have been offered in the past, to the effect
that Abu al-Khayr was a Fatimid propagandist working in Spain for al-Mu'izz,
and that he was a free-thinker who perhaps let himself get a little too
carried away for the atmosphere of the times; on balance, the latter judgement
seems closest to accounting for all the evidence.

Was Abu al-Khayr just an isolated case of eccentric hostility to the
regime expressed in the conventional formulas of religion? Was his opposition
to the regime essentially political, secular, in character, or was it rather
religiously based, with political implications flowing from religious sources?
His trial, condemnation, and rapid execution by al-Hakam, further, suggest
an early example of that phenomenon of our own century, the show trial.
Such events were not the invention of the twentieth century; nor of the
fifth/eleventh century, and all the circumstances of this trial support
such a view of it. But if that was the case, was Abu al-Khayr then the
tip of an iceberg of suppressed discontent with Umayyad rule? We do not
have the evidence to reach a conclusion on this, but the apparently thorough
effort by the state to ensure that the evidence should damn Abu al-Khayr
completely seems to indicate that the regime may have feared such discontent.

Under 'Abd al-Rahman III and al-Hakam II, the caliphal title seems to
have been simply one means by which these rulers sought to increase their
own magnificence; void of any but the most normative of religious content,
and lacking any of the attributes usually associated with the command of
the faithful, the Umayyad caliphal title came under these two rulers to
be little more than a local Iberian variant of the title of amir. When
al-Hakam succeeded his father in 350/96I, he did so by virtue of his appointment
as heir at about the age of eight; this appointment must have taken place
in about 3II/923-4 or some five or six years before 'Abd al-Rahman assumed
caliphal titles. So far as we know, al-Hakam was nominated by his father
to succeed as amir; we have no reason to suppose that the nomination was
repeated, or renewed, later on, when 'Abd al-Rahman was calling himself
caliph, to take account of the new situation. After the death of al-Hakam
the character of the caliphal institution was transformed.

The most significant role in this development was played by al-Mansur.
A high official in the government under al-Hakam, he engineered both the
succession of that ruler's young son, Hisham, on al-Hakams death and his
own advancement to supreme power in the state as his hajib, or chamberlain.
In the course of a very few years, he arrogated to himself all power and
virtually all authority in the state, isolated the nominal ruler from any
contact with his subjects, and laid the foundations for the development
of the caliphal institu- tion in the century following his death.

The key to this process was the need for legitimacy felt by al-Mansur,
and after him by almost all rulers in Islamic Spain before the invasions
of the Almoravids. Legitimation could be provided by a caliph. As a result,
al-Mansur took great care to preserve the institution which provided him
with a caliph. At the same time, he also took care to ensure that the caliph
should be a cipher, a task made easier by the fact that he was only a boy
when he succeeded:

"he sat upon the throne of the kingdom, and ordered that he be
saluted with the salutation of kings, and he called himself 'the hajib
al-Mansur', and letters and proclamations and orders were dispatched in
his name, and he ordered that the du'a' should be made for him in his name
on the pulpits [manabir] immediately after the du'a' for the caliph, and
he erased the mark of the caliphate completely, and Hisham al-Mu'ayyad
had no more of the marks of the caliphate than the du'a' on the pulpits,
and the inscription of his name on the coins and embroidered robes [sc.
robes of honour], and his chancery [diwan] was disregarded in respect of
anyching beyond these matters."

There was thus a twofold process: on the one hand the caliph was progressively
removed from the sight of his subjects, isolated from the exercise of any
power from the day of his accession, and made more and more a purely nominal
head of state; on the other, the real effective ruler, al-Mansur, while
not arrogating to himself any of the titles or formal prerogatives of the
caliph, nevertheless took on both the reality and even the forms of kingship,
including the very title of malik. This dual process had the effect of
transforming the nature of the Iberian caliphal institution. From providing
the state with what were relatively normal secular rulers, it came now
to be the quasi-religious source of authority for other wielders of secular
power. In this, of course, the Iberian institution was not so different
from that in Baghdad, but it suffered, among other things, from one crucial
difference from that oriental institution: it lacked any real base in religion
or ideology more broadly considered.

The caliphal title had always been an extra adornment for its first
two, powerful wearers, but it had not, of itself, formed part of an ideology
giving meaning to Umayyad rule in the peninsula (or elsewhere), and decline
of the Umayyads inevitably drew in its train decline of their institution.

The method created by al-Mansur for the legitimation of his usurpation
of authority worked successfully throughout his own reign and that of his
son, 'Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar (up till 399/I008), but it could not last
indefinitely. The effect of total isolation of the nominal ruler and of
his removal from the exercise of any power was a decline in his prestige,
and this was followed by a decline in the prestige attached to his offfice.
As in the east, again, though in al-Andalus the whole process was rather
telescoped, the caliphal institution came to seem in the end unnecessary
both to the exercise and to the legitimation of power (though it is striking,
if not therefore all that surprising, that it is just at this stage in
their history that works propounding a caliphal theory begin to be written).

The transformation is visible already during the reign of 'Abd al- Malik
al-Mu2affar, the first son of al-Mansur.28 Clearly anxious, like his father,
both to ensure the obedience of the caliph and to assure the succession
of rule within his own family, he took on extra titles and also sought
to advance his young son, Muhammad, some way on the cursus honorum of a
ruler's son in those days. In 398/I008, not very long before his own death,
he caused Hisham al-Mu'ayyad to send him the following letter:

"From the Caliph Hisham b. al-Hakam al-Mu ayyad billah: In the
name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful: May God complete His kindness
to you, and give you an excellent fate, and clothe you in His pardon and
His forgiveness.

"Since we see that you, may God preserve you, through God's great
work and mighty excellence, have done for us things which restore the heart
and gladden the eye, we have asked God for permission to call you 'al-Muzaffar'
['the one who has been given victory', sc. by God]. We ask God urgently
and humbly and supplicatingly to let us and you know the meaning of this
name, and to adorn you with its meaning, and to give us and you and all
the Muslims the good fortune that you derive from it, and make us and them
prosper [thereby] in all regions [?], and to combine it with success and
prosperity from Him, through His favour and His unseen kindness. And therefore
have we permitted [you to be addressed by] your kunya [this means: th form
of a name consisting of Abu' (Father of") plus a name or a word denoting
some abstract idea or [physical object (such as a son) associated with
the person bearing the name] in our assemblies and our gatherings, and
in the letters that are addresed to you or that emanate from you in [all]
the areas of our empire [sultanina], and on any other documents on which
your name appears [either] with or without ours, as a mark of your position
in our eyes, and a proof of the rank you enjoy with us. And similarly have
we honoured your son, Abu Amir Muhammad b. al-Muzaffar, our charge, may
God make him happy, by advancing hmm to the rank of the two vizierates,
and we have added to that the [right to be called by his] kunya, in addition
to [the title of] shaykh and [the right to] rank immediately after you
in the state.

"You are worthy of all that, and of a great deal more than that,
from us, since you are our guardian and the sword of our state [? dynasty;
Ar. dawla], and the one charged with the care of our da'wa,32 the product
of our beneficence and the student of our teaching [?].

"So announce what we have appointed for you to the mawali, and
to the civil servants [ahl al-khidma], and write about it to [all] the
provinces of the kingdom [mamlaka], and apply yourself accordingly to thanks
for [His] beneficence. May God grant you success and may He grant us to
enjoy your ing long in good health and may He delight us for a long time
to come with your continued well-being. He is a powerful ruler [Ar. Wali],
mighty, victorious. If God, may He be exalted, will."

As one of the sources of fbn 'Idhari, who is one of our sources for
this document, points out, 'Abd al-Malik was at pains, in procuring this
letter, to establish for his son 'what fathers before him have done for
their sons, by way of making them inherit their high rank'. He was also
anxious to make it appear, at least on the surface, that the real initiative
for the decrees in this letter came from the caliph, not from himself,
but both the reality of the situation and the honours granted to the dictator's
young son indicate well enough who the source of the idea was.

The change in the character of the caliphal institution is well brought
out by this document: the caliph is now no longer an independent actor
on the political stage; he is no more than the tool of the real ruler in
the state, and his only function, beyond the ceremonial, is to provide
some form of legitimation for the rule exercised by those who have supplanted
him.

Not long after the date of this document (and notwithstanding the caliph's
prayers that he should live long) 'Abd al-Malik was dead. He was succeeded
by his brother 'Abd al-Rahman, also known as Sanchuelo. It is possible
that Sanchuelo may have had his brother poisoned, in order to assure his
own, rather than Muhammad b. al-Muzaffar's, succession to him, but certainty
on this cannot be attained. Sanchuelo was a very different man from his
father and his elder brother, dazzled by the magnificence of which he had
always been a part and was now become the focus. Realizing, too, the change
which the role of the caliph, and of the caliphal institution, had undergone
thanks to his father's career, he seems to have decided both to increase
still further the magnificence of his own position and to do away with
what was otherwise a useless relic, a caliphal institution separate from
the person of the ruler. To do this, he simply decided to make the caliph
declare him his heir in that role. Hisham, possibly unaware that in once
again signing documents placed in front of him he was actually signing
his own death warrant, complaisantdy sent the document required of him.

This document is of a piece with the man it is addressed to; 'Abd al-Rahman
had by this time taken on new and grandiose tides, including dhat of 'al-Nasir',
deliberately echoing that of the founder of the caliphal institution in
Cordoba, and immediately afterwards he proceeded to grant his own young
son, 'Abd al-'Azlz, then less than two years old, the title of hajib, in
addition to the laqab of Sayf al-Dawla, 'Sword of dhe Dynasty', which had
been borne by al-Muzaffar. The document itself is flowing and elegant,
flattering its addressee and offering him apparently copper-bottomed guarantees
for the security of its contents. It reads almost asthlough drafted by
a barrack-room lawyer, widh its attempts to block imaginary loopholes and
prevent the caliph from changing his mind afterwards. The document is as
follows:

"This is what the Commander of the Faithful, Hisham al-Mu'ayyad
billah -- may God grant him long life -- enjoins on the people in general,
and what he commits himself in particular before God [to do]; he has given
his right hand [to it] in complete agreement, after careful investigation,
and long consideration. He has been worried about the Imamate of the Muslims
which God has given to him, and about the Command of the Faithful which
God has entrusted to him; he fears the blow of fate against which there
is no security; and he is afraid of the descent of the judgement which
cannot be turned aside; he is alarmed that, if that destiny should befall
him, and that fate come upon him, without his having erected for this community
[Ar. umma] a banner of refuge, and having furnished it with a sanctuary
to which it may turn, [then] he might meet God in [a state of] remissness
towards [the community] and neglecting to fulfil the duty that is owed
to them.

"Therefore he has searched the ranks of the men of the tribe of
Quraysh and others, to find someone worthy to have the power entrusted
to him, who may be relied upon to take on this task, from among those worthy
of it by their religion and their integrity, their good guidance and their
piety; he has one so rejecting partiality and renouncing idle whim, striving
for the truth md seeking [only] God's pleasure, may He be mighty and majestic,
through what pleases Him, even if it means cutting the bonds of friendship
and mbittering the ties of kinship, knowing that there is no intercession
with [God] that is higher [in value] than pious actions, and sure that
there is no nore pleasing path to Him than the purest religion. And he
has found no ne who is more worthy to be invested with the caliphate and
entrusted with the care of the affairs of the caliphate after him[self],
by virtue of his excellence, and the nobility of his character, the extent
of his devotion and he pre-eminence of his rank, together with his god-fearing,
and his probity, his knowledge, and his prudence, than the most trustworthy,
the most excellent adviser, pure of every fault, Nasir al-Dawla Abu al-Mutarrif
Abd-Rahman b. al-Mansur Abl 'Amir Muhammad Ibn Abl 'Amir -- may God grant
him success -- since the Commander of the Faithful has tested him and examined
him, and investigated him and studied him; he has seen that he is devoted
to [all] that is good, winner of contests, possessed of the extremes [of
the virtues], piling up glorious feats, heir to noble actions, raised up
to the highest dwelling-places of piety and elevated to the highest level
of wisdom. He is] a matchless father and a twin without peer [?]; he who
had al-Mansur or a father and al-Muzaffar for a brother, it is little wonder
that he should reach the utmost degree of excellence, and encompass all
the varieties of glory.

"At the same time, the Commander of the Faithful -- may God ennoble
him -- because of the hidden learning which he has read, and the stored
up traditions which he has studied, hopes that his heir will be th[at]
Qahtam about whom Abd Allah b. Amr b. al- As spoke, and that in him will
be confirmed what Abu Hurayra ascribed to the Prophet -- may God bless
him and give him peace -- [to the effect] that the Last Judgement could
not come until a man of Qahtan went out driving the Arabs with his stick.
And since experience points to him, and the traditions come together in
him in his view, and he has not found any rival or any equal to him, he
has handed over to him the administration of affairs during his lifetime,
and entrusted to him the care of the caliphate after his death, voluntarily,
willingly, of his own initiative and choice, not at the suggestion of another
and not inclining towards him in partiality, nor ignoring the interests
of Islam and his people in so doing. And he grants him permission to allow
the community to choose concerning his succession over them, if he thinks
that the Commander of the Faithful -- may God make him glorious -- is staying
in office too long.

"And the Commander of the Faithful -- may God make him glorious
-- signed this document, and issued it, and authorized it, and confirmed
it, and did not make it conditional on any exclusion or any right of withdrawal,
and agreed to its fulfilment in private and in public, in speech and in
act, invoking the trust and promise of God and the protection of His Prophet
-- may God bless him and give him peace -- and the protection of the Righteous
Caliphs of his house and his ancestors, and his own protection, to the
effect that it be not changed, and be not altered, and be not transformed
and be not taken back. And he calls God and His angels to witness that
and God is a sufficient witness. And he calls as witnesses to it those
who have placed their names to this document. And he -- may God make him
glorious -- gave permission for this matter and made the words and the
action effective, in the presence of the one who is his heir, al-Ma mun
Nasir al-Dawla Abu al-Mutarrif Abd al-Rahman b. al-Mansur -- may God give
him success -- and with his agreement to what he has been invested with
and his [agreement to] undertaking the duties thus imposed on him, [all
that in the month of Rabi I 399[/November-December I008]."

This is an extraordinary document, both as to its general content and
as to its expression of that content. Such caliphal theory as really existed
at the time certainly allowed the caliph to nominate his own successor,
and it was up to a point conceivably possible (though almost impossible
in practice) that that nominated successor should be a member of a different
family. The idea that a caliph must necessarily be a Qurashl, that is,
of the same tribe as the Prophet Muhammad, which has a very respectably
ancient pedigree, does not mean that he must be a member of the 'Abbasid
or Umayyad families, or indeed of any particular family. The elective element
which is strong in all caliphal theory helps to make it clear why this
should be so. And indeed, later, when the question had become largely academic,
theorists tended to allow that anyone at all might become caliph (though
in practice, for perhaps obvious reasons, it was generally easier to ascribe
a fictitious Qurashi ancestry to anyone claiming caliphal title, like the
Ottomans). But in this early stage, before caliphal theory, with the decline
of caliphs everywhere, had had time to take shape, the handing over of
the institution as a whole from one dynasty to a man who was not even of
Qurashi descent still shocked. This was particularly so in the context
of the extreme normativism of the Malik- orthodoxy of al-Andalus under
the Umayyads. For Muslims in the Iberian peninsula, there could be only
one caliphal institution. It could be filled by only one caliph: if that
caliph were not the 'Abbasid in Baghdad, then he must be the Cordoban Umayyad,
who denied the legitimacy of his ancestors' usurpers; if the Cordoban ruler
were not an Umayyad, then he could have no reason to reject 'Abbasid legitimacy.
But Sanchuelo's action shocked not only those with an interest in theoretical
analysis of dynastic quarrels. It also angered very many of the caliph's
subjects in Cordoba, including those Umayyads who had survived the careful
weeding-out programme of al-Mansur and his elder son.

It was perhaps in order to anticipate their objections to Hisham's signing
away of their family inheritance that Sanchuelo had the document drawn
up in the form which it has. Easily the longest and the most ornate of
the documents considered here, it is drawn up clearly with the aim of justifying
the action proposed in advance of any critics, and of ensuring that once
signed it could not be cancelled. From a beginning in which the caliph
is made to protest his concern for the welfare of the community, and his
care that he should have a suitable successorÑno mention is made
here, perhaps curiously, of the fact that Hisham was childless, but as
one reason for is was deliberate action on the part of his hajibs it may
not be so curious an omission as all thatÑHisham goes on to explain
his search, both among members of the caliphally qualified Quraysh and
among members of other tribes, for a suitable candidate to succeed him.
He describes the sorts of qualities, moral, religious, and other, which
the man sought must have, and stresses that he carried out his search without
bias and without allowing himself to be swayed by any idle whim; and he
stresses, too, that he has ignored the obligations which might have been
thought to be imposed by friendship and by family ties, but has sought
only what is right in terms of his relationship to God and the community
of Muslims. Following this long apologetic preamble, and the inevitable
conclusion that follows from it, that he cannot find anyone else with the
required qualities, he identifies his candidate, and then confirms that
he has tested him repeatedly to make sure of his worth for the post of
caliph. And then, returning to the matter of descent once again, he attempts
to justify his departing from the ranks of the Quraysh in choosing Sanchuelo
by reliance on a tradition of the Prophet, one which it is worth noting
he claims to have found in learning to which he has privileged access.
He then formally states that he hands over the succession to him, and even
makes it permissible for him to anticipate his inheritance, if he feels
that Hisham himself has reigned for too long, before finally, in a long
list of clauses which sound more like a commercial contract than a statement
by a reigning monarch, hedging everything round with legal forms attesting
to the firmness and irrevocability of the document altogether.

Form seems somehow to have taken over completely from reality at this
stage. The document setting out the basis for Umayyad caliphal claims in
3I6/929 was a model of concision and content. It was also very short. A
great ruler, sure in his greatness, could lay out his arguments and act
in accordance with them. But the relationship between a supreme caliphal
institution, represented now by fainŽant caliphs, and a series of hajibs,
of non-existent theoretical legitimacy, dominating that institution from
below, was always bo`und to be awkward. The texts of the documents illustrating
that relationship become longer and the significance of their contents
shorter more or less in proportion. When 'Abd al-Malik appointed his son
to the double vizierate he was in fact carrying on a family tradition of
lofty titulature: his father had given both him and his brother Sanchuelo
high rank and titles in 38I/992, when Sanchuelo was probably no more than
nine years old. The devaluation had begun early.

The real reaction to this act on the part of Sanchuelo came very soon.
It is well known how, ignoring advice, he left Cordoba on a raid into Christian
Spain, how in his absence a revolution occurred which swept away both his
own dynasty and the caliph Hisham, replacing both with another Umayyad
prince, Muhammad al-Mahdl, and how Sanchuelo ended up shortly afterwards
on a gibbet in his former capital. In the course of this revolution, the
caliph seems to have abdicated formally, declaring his incapacity to rule,
and for the next few years it seems to have been the case that where a
caliph was unseated, as distinct from merely being killed, he was generally
made to sign some form of recognition of such legal incompetence. anterestingly,
in these cases we have no examples of such caliphs being mutilated, for
instance by being blinded, to ensure that they remained legally incompetent
).

The revolution that swept away the 'Amirid dictatorship swept away also
their institution of the hajibate. Authority, which had always in theory
flowed from the caliph, now once again implied also power: the caliph seemed
for a time to be again a secular prince. The quarrels which pitted a number
of different factions in the peninsula against each other reflected this
analysis in their concern with the placing of one or another Umayyad prince
on the caliphal throne. But there was not an unlimited supply of Umayyad
princes, and those who were available were not of the calibre of their
common ancestor, 'Abd al-Rahman III al-Nasir. Al-Mansur and 'Abd al-Malik
had made sure of that. The Umayyads' glory, like their power, was now spent.
By the time their last caliph, Hisham III al-Mu'tadd, ruled, they were
objects as much of contempt as their offce had once been of wonder. A fine
story is preserved by Ibn Bassam, to the effect that this caliph sent someone
on an embassy to the ruler of Tortosa, Muqatil, in about 420/I029, or slightly
later. The ambassador, Fa'iz b. al-Mughlra, was a vizier of this caliph.
In Tortosa, he met a poet, Abu al-Rabl' Sulayman b. Ahmad al-Quda-i, to
whom he said, 'If you came to Cordoba, to the Commander of the Faithful
al-Mu'tadd billah, then you would get the rank of vizier like me.' And
the poet answered in verse: 'Look at you, calling yourself a vizier! Whose
vizier are you, O vizier? By God, the [expression] commander [of the faithful]
has no meaning; so how can there be any meaning in the [expression] vizier
to that commander [of the faithful]!'

Somewhere in this turmoil, Hisham II al-Mu'ayyad seems to have met his
end. He was probably murdered by Sulayman al-Musta'm, in one of that caliph's
attempts on the caliphal throne; but he may have been killed during some
other coup; and he may even have slipped away into permanent obscurity.
No one will ever know. But during the second reign of Sulayman al-Musta'm,
between 403/ IOI3 and 407/IOI6, Hisham al-Mu'ayyad, alive or dead, came
to play a role of some little significance, as he was to do on and off
hroughout the fifth/eleventh century.

One of the difficulties experienced by Sulayman al-Musta'm was that
he was desperately dependent on Berber support to maintain his hold on
the caliphal title and the city of Cordoba. He was regarded, indeed, as
the caliph 'of the Berbers' by the Cordobans, and was little more than
the convenient tool of their territorial ambitions to the north of the
Straits of Gibraltar. On assuming power in Cordoba, he distributed fiefs
among his Berber supporters, and among the rest he appointed 'Al- b. Hammud,
an apparently genuine descendant of 'Al Ibn Abl Talib, and his brother
al-Qasim to the governorates of Ceuta and Tangier. The potential danger
which they represented to him was ignored, although he was warned by one
adviser that he was 'making insects into serpents'. The courtier was right.

Together with another leader of a faction, Khayran, and with support
also from another Berber leader, Zawi b. Z-iri, 'Al soon raised a legitimist
banner of rebellion against Sulayman. In this context, of course, legitimacy
was now little better than yesterday's newspaper, but it offered 'Ah, though
perhaps without his allies understanding this, a major advantage: he rose
in the name of Hisham II al-Mu'ayyad, by now almost certainly dead. Having
deposed, and killed, Sulayman al-Musta'm, 'Ali, with the authority of his
own distinguished ancestry, was ideally placed to assume the caliphal robes
himself. He had in fact already prepared the ground for just such a step.

On first raising the flag of revolt against Sulayman from his governorate
in Ceuta, 'Ali had claimed to be doing so in the name of Hisham II al-Mu'ayyad.
The story that was put out was that that caliph, in gaol as a prisoner
of Sulayman al-Musta'm, had addressed a letter to 'Ali in around 404/IOI3,
in which he had said, 'Rescue me from imprisonment by the Berbers and al-Musta'm.
You are my heir.' The caliph was apparently very interested in astrological
texts. (There may be an echo of this in the reference to hidden lore in
the document just considered.) In one such text, he had apparently found
a tradition that related the end of the Umayyad dynasty in al-Andalus and
possibly also vengeance for his own humiliations to someone from Ceuta
whose name began with the letter 'ayn. On the basis of this story, which
he seems to have been able to impose on his allies Khayran and Zail b.
Z-iri, 'Ali Ibn Hammud succeeded in asserting a right to the caliphal title
for himself, and in passing that title on to his family after him, to the
permanent exclusion of the Umayyads.

It is not clear whether we actually possess the letter ascribed to Hisham
which was produced by 'Ali Ibn Hammud. The quotation from it cited above
may be the entire document produced by 'Ali (a possibility strengthened
by the fact that the quotation comes from a text composed within a generation
or so of the event described); it may be only part of that document. The
references in our sources to the caliph's astrological interests may well
have been influenced by references to them in the document itself as produced
by 'Ali. We cannot know. But we can nevertheless point to the striking
similarity between this docurnent, or what we know about it and about the
context from which it emerged, and the document addressed by the same caliph
only a few years earlier to his third hajib, Sanchuelo. This similarity
is one of structure; as to detail, the two texts are just as strikingly
different from each other. As in the earlier document, the main part of
the letter to 'li is devoted to making the addressee Hisham's heir, and
the second part (or the addition, if it did not actually form part of the
original letter, itself forged by or for 'Ali provides a form of justification
for the assignation of the inheritance to him. In the first document we
have a hadith, or tradition ascribed to the Prophet, which can be found
in the great collections of such traditions; in the second, simply a tradition,
which may itself have been invented by or for 'Ail. The significant difference
between the t vo documents lies in their form, at the level of the text:
in the later document, if the quotation in al-Kita-b al-Muzaffari is authentic,
all we have is a simple letter, bare of all rhetorical device, and devoted
wholly to expressing a very direct message; in the earlier document, by
contrast, we have, as Hoenerbach showed in some detail, a legal document
drawn up with great care, showing all the lawyer's concern to block loopholes
and close off any possibility of the document's being voided or cancelled
(another example of the third 'Amirid's concern with forms over reality).
In both cases the fundamental structure is the same, but the differences
between the forms of the two documents demonstrate vividly the different
aims which they came into existence to serve and the realities out of which
they grew. It looks almost as though the later, much shorter document was
created with that earlier one in mind.

Like Sanchuelo, the Hammudids claimed a documented right of inheritance
to the caliphal title; unlike him, they could support that claim also with
their noble lineage. In addition, by this time, four years and more after
the dethronement of Hisham by Muhammad al- Mahdi, the claim to inherit
based on a document allegedly sent to them by Hisham may actually have
had an element of the legitimist about it: the 'Amirids were now dead and
gone (the renewal of an 'Amirid ruling presence in the peninsula, in the
person of the infant son of Sanchuelo, still lay several years in the future);
their usurping dictatorship already belonged to the past; al-Mahdi, the
revolutionary whose rising had begun the collapse, was dead, killed by
his own supporters; Sulayman al-Musta'm, who had profited by the confusion
to make himself caliph, seemed to promise little: rejected by the mass
of Andalusians and by most of the country outside the capital, supported
only by some of the Berbers, discredited by the excesses of his supporters,
he was as much the prisoner of those who had put him in power as Hisham
had been of the 'Amirids. But for all the lack of power which had attended
him throughout his life, precisely because of the way in which the first
two 'Amirids had been able to isolate him from the exercise of power while
allowing him to retain the forms and dignities of his title, Hisham was
able, even in death, to offer a person like 'Al Ibn Hammud a form of legitimacy.
'Al Ibn Hammud inserted himself into a legitimist line founded on the high
authority invested in the title of caliph by those who had actually destroyed
the power of the caliph. The legitimacy to which he thus made appeal came
for the rest of the century to serve as a point d'appui for many other
rulers who needed a convenient form of legitimation for themselves.

Establishment of the inheritance in the Hammudid family might well have
proved the salvation of the caliphal institution. Unfortunately, two factors
supervened to prevent this. The first was the murder of 'All Ibn Hammud
by two of his slaves in Dhu al-Qa'da 408/March IOI8; the second was what
seems to have been an endemic inability in the members of the Hammudid
family to understand the value and importance of family solidarity: throughout
the whole period of their presence in the Iberian peninsula, the Hammudids
appear to have regarded other members of their own family as their most
dangerous rivals; in most cases this view was justified by the event.

During the decade and a half following the murder of 'Ali Ibn Hammud,
Cordoba experienced a variety of rulers, of both the Hammudid and the Umayyad
lines. Most of these were of small worth, and their acquisition of the
caliphal titles of less note. In the case of one of these, however, the
process of selection was of greater interest. This was the case of the
caliph al-Mustazhir.

After the ejection of al-Qasim Ibn Hammud from Cordoba by the inhabitants
of that city at the end of hus second reign, in Ramadan 4I4/November I023,
the population of Cordoba seems to have decided on a return to the Umayyads.
We are told that they proceeded to a form of election. The details of this
episode are a little opaque, but there appears to have been a meeting of
some sort of shura, possibly a form of electoral college, which agreed
upon a field of three candidates, all of them Umayyad princes: 'Abd al-
Rahman b. Hisham b. 'Abd al-Jabbar (a brother of Muhammad al- Mahd, Sulayman
b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Murtada, and Muhammad Ibn al-'Iraqi. All three were
convoked to appear in the great mosque in Cordoba for the formal election
of one of their number. The election was to have taken place in the presence
of the 'amma (the 'common' people, or lower classes of the population)
and the khassa (the 'special' people, or higher classes) but we can have
no clear idea of who constituted the former in this context, and only a
general idea of who constituted the latter. At the meeting, 'Abd al-Rahman
b. Hisham b. 'Abd al-Jabbar made a sudden imposing appearance, flanked
by a crowd of his supporters, and intimidated those assembled into electing
him unopposed on the spot. We are told that the scribe Ahmad b. Burd (a
well-known litterateur of the period) had prepared the formal document
recording the accession of the victor, but with the name Sulayman al-Murtada
inserted as he had been expected by all those present (who had presumably
arranged the details of the whole rather theatrical episode in advance)
to win the formal election. The necessary change was hurriedly made in
the document, and the two losing candidates were then taken into custody
by the supporters of the new caliph.

This process, even though it was aborted in the event, is very striking,
for it seems to have been virtually the only example in the history of
the Iberian (possibly of any) caliphal institution of a form of election.
While the elective element was always present in some form, in theory at
least, in the choice of a new caliph, it is very rarely that we come across
actual examples of it in our sources, and in this case we appear to be
faced with an elective process of a surprisingly open kind.

A perhaps slightly similar development may have taken place in the choice
of the very last Umayyad caliph in Cordoba, Hisham III al-Mu'tadd, in 4I8/I027.
On this occasion we hear that the Cordobans, having rid themselves of Yahya
b. 'Al Ibn Hammud, al- Mu'ta, had witnessed a short-lived take-over of
their city by the two Slav leaders Khayran and Mujahid and had indulged
themselves in a massacre of the few Berbers still to be found in the city.
The Slavs soon fell out and left the old imperial capital, and the Cordobans,
fearful of a Berber return, sought a new caliph, preferably an Umayyad
and if possible someone who could command some support outside the city,
for themselves. Learning a little from past errors, they sought to gain
support for an agreeable candidate from the emerging local dynasts in the
northern part of al-Andalus, and finally agreement of a sort was reached
on the appointment of Hisham III al-Mu'tadd, a brother of an earlier pretender
to the caliphal title, al-Murtada.sl Unfortunately, we know very little
of the details of his choice and his appointment; it seems that it was
the result of complex bargaining and very lengthy negotiations between
and among the leading citizens of Cordoba (possibly in some organized form,
but perhaps more probably not) and the leaders of the northern provinces.
We do not know enough to be able to judge whether any formal election took
place.

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What was the role of the "caliph" in the West, and how did
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